26 NOVEMBER 1842, Page 2

Spain is again in trouble. There is a Ministerial crisis

: all the Parliamentary offices have been delegated to Opposition members ; and the Regent alters his Cabinet, rather than dissolve the Cortes and risk an election where there is no certainty that revolution is not at work. For Barcelona is in open insurrection ; the Provi- sional Committee, organized by its inhabitants, " negotiates " with the military commander, a prisoner in his own citadel ; while mar- tial law obtains in the country around. In Madrid itself there have been reports of a rioting, or a general Republican insurrection, and of Government precautions ; and then again these reports have been contradicted. Where so much is imperfectly known, and perhaps more is unknown, it is impossible to perceive the precise tendency of passing events; but it seems clear enough that Spain is as far as ever from real tranquillity. It must be thus so long as the coun- try is divided between such extreme opinions. There are itt that realm opinions which may be called of our own time and country ; and within the same territory, the same streets, and perhaps the same house-walls, opinions proper only to semi-barbarous times and countries ; each set constituting a real "public opinion." The composition of society makes it inevitable that the Government should be either immensely in advance of its time as regards the people—" the millions," or immensely behind its time as regards all the politically-informed portion of the people—the "intelligence of the country." It cannot have a Government congenial to the state of society until that is rendered more homogeneous and brought more up to the European level : a Government below that level could not exist. Spain has long years of trouble before it.